NaNoNoMore

If you’re a writer of any kind, I’m sure at one point or another you’ve likely heard of — and maybe participated in — the non-profit organization NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that hosts an annual 50,000 word novel writing challenge every November.

NaNoWriMo also used to host two Camp sessions in April and July where you could choose your own word goal, edit goal, page goal, or hour goal. Complete with these fun little happy cabins you could have with a few friends or new strangers-to-friends.

It used to be a great time. I have plenty of memories of NaNoWriMo with friends. Memories that I still cherish because those friends are gone now. It was P.T. Wyant who got me into NaNo to begin with back in 2015, and it’s where I finished my first book, several contest submissions, some short story poking, and the start of three other novel ideas. As someone who thrives on external motivation the most, NaNo was a fire under my ass that allowed me to typically write more in those months than I would in any other month. A fact that still holds true to me today. Though I’m trying to get better at that.

Unfortunately, NaNoWriMo began to go downhill after it changed hands and their two separate sites (one for Camps, one for the main event) got merged into one. Since the main event only dealt with words, any goals that resided among Camp events involving hours, pages, or minutes got majorly messed up. You couldn’t see your stats or your wins for those anymore after getting converted to “words” that didn’t add up to what you really accomplished. Almost as if you had lost all that progress.

That was the first blow for NaNo. The first stepping stone toward its demise.

The site was no longer as nice and had become frustrating to navigate. The cabins weren’t the same. The stats and goal settings no longer as conducive and encouraging.

NaNoWriMo had lost its endearing charm.

Bit by bit, writers started to leave it behind.

Then in early 2023, NaNo hammered its first nail in its coffin.

Accusations arose about inappropriate behavior concerning a moderator and members of their Young Writer’s Program. Minors. The problem was slow to be addressed, and the internet rallied against NaNoWriMo. Many vowed to never use the site again because it appeared as if they had tried to keep this issue hush hush. In fact, changes to the hiring process for NaNo staff and volunteers for the safety of minors didn’t happen until early 2024. An issue that should have been nipped in the bud immediately went on for far too long.

The Writing Community’s confidence tanked in NaNo.

And it only got worse from there…

Later that same year, with AI becoming a hot button topic among artists of all kinds, NaNo signed their death certificate with one small announcement. In September of 2024, they made the following statement:

“NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI. NaNoWriMo’s mission is to “provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.” We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. Please see this related post that speaks to our overall position on nondiscrimination with respect to approaches to creativity, writer’s resources, and personal choice.

We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.”

The majority of the Writing Community and artists detest AI. It is theft. Plain and simple. AI cannot replace the heart and soul of human generated art of any kind. Most will even stop supporting someone if they admit to using AI or stand by its uses. (As an author myself, let me be clear, I definitely don’t stand with AI. I am 100% against it.) So, you can imagine the mobs and torches that came out for NaNoWriMo when they released this statement.

Those that hadn’t ditched NaNo in previous months after the allegations went and deleted their accounts immediately. Those that believed they had just made a mistake before saw this as an attack on our creative rights.

Which, frankly, it is.

The non-profit organization quickly tried to walk back their statement and play damage control by removing their original “classist and ableist” statement from their website and releasing a second announcement:

“Taking a position of neutrality was not an abandonment of writers’ legitimate concerns about AI. It was an acknowledgment that NaNoWriMo can’t maintain a civil, inclusive community if we allow selective intolerance. We absolutely believe that AI must be discussed and that its ethical use must be advocated-for. What we don’t believe is that NaNoWriMo belongs at the forefront of that conversation. That debate should continue to thrive within the greater writing community as technologies continue to evolve.

We apologize that our original message was unclear and seemingly random. Our note on ableism and classism was rooted in the desire to point out that, for people in certain circumstances, some forms of AI can be life-changing. We certainly don’t believe those with concerns about AI to be classist or ableist. Not being more careful about our wording was a bad decision on our part.”

The only way to find the original statement now is to go down a rabbit hole on Reddit or look for screenshots that people have saved and shared during the main explosion. Luckily for my readers, I went down that rabbit hole.

The Writing Community rose up for the autumn season and its distinctive writing challenge month after this shattering announcement. New challenges began to pop up among social media to replace NaNoWriMo, such as @WriteToberFest on Twitter, which was slated to happen in October instead of November. (Whomever thought it a good idea to have a 50k writing challenge during a major holiday month was not very bright anyways.) Discord groups rose. Creators began to look for ways to make a new equivalent to NaNoWriMo. Some alternatives already existed in the form of other platforms and apps.

Then the inevitable finally happened. In March of 2025, NaNoWriMo released a statement via email to announce their impending closure. They attributed the closure to a decreasing lack of funds as the main reason, but the Writing Community knows they lost a lot of donors and donations in the last couple years because of the accusations and their AI stance.

Unfortunately, the mighty organization dug its own grave for the most part.

There’s no set date that I can find on when the site will be permanently shut down, so if you still want to download some of your data or take screenshots of your accomplishments before they’re gone, now’s your last chance.

I, for one, am both disappointed and glad to see it go. As I mentioned before, NaNo in the good ‘ole days housed some of my best writing memories. It seems like all the major memories of my early writing years now lay in organizations that have gone far downhill. I took my chance to capture screenshots and look up old winner certificates for momentos of a once great time while it’s still there. I will share my favorites in a slide show below.

Perhaps one day we will have a perfect alternative as big as NaNoWriMo that checks all the right boxes, but until then we will persevere with our own made-up challenges and platform alternatives. NaNoWriMo is now NaNoNoMore, and after recent years, all I can say is good riddance and do better next time.